1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to instruments for measuring tension for a filamentary element of the string type.
The invention relates more particularly to an individual tension meter for measuring tension in a racquet string, said tension meter comprising:                a body, referred to as the “graspable body”, suitable for being taken hold of in the hand;        a stress member for stressing the string by deforming said string, said stress member including at least two bearing elements spaced apart from each other, such as studs, fingers or prongs, positionable on either side of an individual string;        
said graspable body and said stress member being movable relative to each other substantially in a pivotal relative movement;                elastically deformable return means connected to the graspable body and to the stress member for stressing the string, and configured to urge the graspable body and the stress member relative to each other back into a given angular position referred to as the “neutral position”;        measurement means for measuring a magnitude representative of the relative pivoting between the graspable body and the stress member; and        computation means for computing the tension of the string as a function of said measured magnitude.        
2. Description of the Related Art
A tension measurement device such as the device described above is known from the state of the art, and in particular from Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,926. In that document, the graspable body is connected via a traction spring to the stress member for stressing the string. For measuring the tension of the string, the graspable body is turned until a reference portion of the stress member comes into register with the string. The tension of the string is then determined on the basis of the relative pivoting angle obtained between the stress member and the graspable body following pivoting of the graspable body.
Said relative angle corresponds to an elongation of the helical spring as stressed in traction. The tauter the string, the larger the relative angle between the graspable body and the stress member and the more the spring is stressed in traction. Conversely, the slacker the string, the smaller the relative angle and the less the spring is stressed in traction.
However, it is observed that the tension meter described in Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,926 operates in only one pivoting direction of the graspable body corresponding to the direction in which the spring can be lengthened. Such a solution therefore poses problems for left-handers when the tension meter is designed for right-handers, and vice versa.
In addition, in Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,926, the tension of a string is determined on the basis of reading graduations provided on a corresponding dial and corresponding to various values of relative angle between the graspable body and the stress member, which makes that tension meter awkward to use.
Like the tension meter described in Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,926, the tension meters described in Documents U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,442, U.S. Pat. No. 4,309,910, and DE 35 32 767 are not designed to be usable both by right-handers and by left-handers.